


The Other Side

by thatblazinglook



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Mirrorverse, PTSD, The Flash season 6, Therapy, Trauma, mental health, the flash season 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24829459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatblazinglook/pseuds/thatblazinglook
Summary: Following her escape from the Mirrorverse, Iris is confronted with a realization that the world she's returned to is not the same. Or perhaps, that she herself if not the same. With the help of her husband Barry, and those she trusts, she works to find a way back to a sense of normalcy. Which may mean facing some of the dark demons she thought she'd left on the other side. (S7 hopes)
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West
Comments: 31
Kudos: 83





	1. Purge

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic focused on how I ~hope~ the show will handle the psychological trauma Iris (and to an extent, Barry) will have to deal with following the s6 Mirrorverse storyline. (Chapter 2 is more Iris centric)

It didn't take much to wake Barry Allen these days. In fact, his restlessness the past few weeks hadn't been this bad since he was eleven years old. Back then, it was the image of his mother, reaching out for him as red and yellow lights swirled around her that he knew he would see when he closed his eyes that kept him up. And while the last few years had created countless horrific scenes to relive in nightmares, nothing had fostered the level of unease he now felt surrounding him with every breath.

Now, it wasn't fear of sleep that kept him up, but of everything around him in waking, and of the flashing watch on his wrist that reminded him he didn't have the power to fight them.

A few nights ago specifically, his restlessness couldn't even confine him to his bed. Instead, it drew him into a late night purge. It was well past 2am by the time he returned home to a space full of shattered mirrors. Between the energy used for speed healing and his late night rendezvous several county's over, everything in his body told him to sleep, to rest, to fight this battle tomorrow. But with every step he took deeper into the home he hadn't lived in for a week, so much felt foreign to him.

_This is where we ate together. This is where we binged that new crappy reality show on Netflix. This is where we laughed, this is where we kissed, this is where she crumbled to pieces in his arms ..._

Every space felt tainted with falsehoods. Moments he thought were something else entirely being rewritten with every glance around the loft.

It wasn't her. All that time it was someone … something else.

But as every place in the apartment felt damaged, each was equally matched with some of the very moments that were driving him forward.

_This is where he and Iris held their first Thanksgiving. This is where they played scrabble with their daughter. This is where she fell asleep in the first movie of the Star Wars marathon. This is where she spilt an entire glass of red wine across all 3 rugs. This is where he told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Twice. This is where she said yes. Twice. This is where they lived._

Though now, of course, it was only he who lived there.

With his mind more alert than ever, he shoved his tired body into motion. Not with speed, but with determination.

This was going to be their home again. And when it is, it will be theirs and only theirs.

He swept up all the glass shards he could find. He then carried the bagged up remains and all but one of the recently added mirrors down to the curb outside the apartment. He questioned throwing them all away, wondering what Eva could still do to them, with them, in such a close proximity to him. But she was not the only one connected to that mirror. He saw Eva step right through it. From the “world she left behind.” The world Iris was still in. 

If there was even the slightest chance that Iris do the same. Or even if it had the unique ability that allowed her to hear him, see him, sense him in any way through it, he would string it across his back to keep it with him at all times if he could.

The 4am frenzy that followed was not planned or calculated. But as simply as Barry had put the piece of their apartment together 3 years ago, he found himself doing it again.

What if he moved the couch under the window? What if he changed the direction of the dinning table? What if he moved this art piece, this vase, this book, this glass, this -

It was nearly daybreak by the time Barry realized there was one room, one big room, he had missed.

As he crept up the stairs he found it harder than he had anticipated to enter the most intimate place in his home.

This was the only bed that had ever been theirs. From the moment it was delivered to the center of their cold cement floor living room to nearly every night since. That was the last place he had been with her. The last place he has seen her, through slits in his eyes as he drifted to sleep. Before she left to follow her lead. Before she got trapped in that place.

Before he knew it, he was stripping the bed clean. First sheet, then comforters, pillows, all haphazardly thrown to the floor. He caught a glimpse of the towels in the bathroom and threw them into the pile as well. Then he began pulling at the bare mattress and bed frame, turning them around in the opposite direction. This resulted in the movement of side tables, dressers, chairs, everything.

Everything needed a new place.

By full fledged morning nearly every moveable piece of furniture in the loft has been adjusted. Bed covering sat shoved into trash bags by the front door, the bed they had once covered still bare and unoccupied. The current sole resident of this loft had instead finally found slumber across the slim window seat that spanned the length of the apartment, the sparsely drawn curtains behind him pulled to hide the now bright morning sun.

While the following night he did get replacements for all his discarded linens, he did not use them for the next several days. Instead, he slept on the just-too-short couch he had just moved from the center of the apartment and tried his hardest not to think of all the nights Iris did the exact same thing when he was in the unknown …

Tonight, however, was different. Tonight he sunk deeply into his mattress as if it were the most comfortable place in the world. And to him, in fact, it was, leading to the soundest sleep he had since his all began.

And that was entirely because he had fallen asleep with his wife safely and tightly enveloped in his arms.


	2. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night following Iris's return from the Mirrorverse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING: PTSD, Panic attacks**  
>  _Hi all. I've been hesitant to post this second chapter because it does depict quite a traumatic event for a Black women. I really want to be authentic in what I believe is the only valid move forward following the season 6 storyline, addressing the trauma that Iris experienced and, to me, that required giving an honest view of PTSD. But I acknowledge how this could be distressing for those in the Black community or those that suffer from PTSD, panic disorder or panic attacks. So I want to make all of this transparent as it will be a heavy focus moving forward. That all being said, if you have any issues with my portrayal, please do not hesitate to message me. And I promise, ultimately, this is a story of hope. Thanks for reading :)_  
>  ___________________________________________________________________________

She felt like she had been living in a dream for the last few hours. In the Mirrorverse, nothing had felt real. Not the things, the place, and not time. She had spent so much of that time conundrum wondering what was going on on the other side of Eva's office mirror. Using the little snip bits Eva showed her as her only means of filling in any gaps. She saw her brother and her family. She saw Barry in their home, and she saw that … "thing" living the life that was hers. Those few and far between moments were all that felt real in all the weeks she spent there, and she wasn't even a part of them.

But when she herself returned to the other side of that mirror, it no longer felt that way. Instead, it felt like a mirage that had been dangled in front of her for so long. A trap, a trick of the mind, something she couldn't trust.

At the start, she bought into the mirage and it's dream-like effect. That dream-like effect is what allowed her to coast through the first several hours blissfully. She was just overcome with happiness to have her freedom once again, to see her family, her friends, to hold Barry in her arms ….

But you cannot live in a dream forever. And it was laying in bed, a bed that looked and felt so much different than her own, that that dream suddenly felt nightmarish. Not because of its new coverings, or it's location, but because those changes didn't really change anything; all the space around her had been occupied by someone else. A foreigner, in her own bed, in her own life.

And now, she felt as though she were the foreigner. To this room, this space, this universe. No matter how palpable her every sense felt, it still felt like she was staring through reflective glass.

She didn't want to be in a dream anymore. She didn't want to be surrounded by things that didn't feel real. She turned her head slightly, it was all she could strain as Barry's head sat directing on her shoulder, his arm stretching securely across her torso. How he was able to configure his longline body that way, she couldn't even fathom right now.

But it was there, looking at his sleeping face, feeling his hot breath on her skin that she finally broke.

Even this, the thing she had missed most of all, didn't feel real.

She wasn't sure how long she laid there with tears stinging her eyes, threatening to roll onto her pillow. She couldn't tell much of time anymore. Every second felt like an hour, or, no time at all. The concept resetting with its own rules with every clock hand tick. After some unspecified time, she felt the body beside her shift in a deep sleep and the tight hold he held on her lightened slightly.

Feeling more and more overwhelmed in this dream reality, she took the opportunity to slip out of his grasp and up from the bed.

In hushed steps she found her way through the darkness and into the bathroom. Her hands immediately found the faucet as she flicked the water on to its hottest setting. She pinned her focus on the stream, only barely visible in the window's moonlight. Her head hung low as her hands grasped the outer ridge of the counter.

She had spent an hour under pouring water in the shower just that evening, trying to find a fresh start under the layers of skin she must have scrubbed off in its duration. It was in those moments of quiet that the bliss began to fade. When she was reminded that she was still the same skin and bone that had been captured, trapped, and hidden away for weeks. The water's constant and even flow, she remembered, had helped her shut off her mind for a few moments as she stared at the shower wall. She hoped the sink faucet could have the same effect. Maybe it wouldn't stop this all from feeling like a dream, but maybe, maybe, it could drown out the constant ache she felt in her head, Just to push it away for a little longer, just as the shower had done.

The water continued to drip with consistency, and Iris tried to focus on it as she drew her breath slowly in and out. She ignored the remnant teardrops that fell from her cheeks to mingle with the water beneath until they had mostly dried up. She bent deeper into the sink and splashed the nearly scalding water across her face. Without thinking, she reached to her side, expecting to hit the towel rack that hung above the toilet. But when her grasp found nothing but air, her dripping face instead stretched forward towards the light switch that was well within her reach.

A light flicked on above her and she spotted the grey towel she had left sprung across the shower curtain and pulled it towards her. The water still ran heavily through the faucet as she dried its remnants from her face. She was not one to waste water, but she was afraid of where her mind would go if she stopped it's monotony.

As she pulled the towel from across her eyes and saw what stood in front of her, however, it negated every second she had spent leveling out her breathing. Because what she was greeted with was the cold, hard reflection of her own gaunt figure staring back at her.

For as long as it took to fix her breaths, it took only an instant for it to become bated to the point of debilitation. Her heart pounded like an angry drum onto her ribs making her chest feel like it was about to be clawed open from the inside due to the pressure. It was as though her heart and veins were pumping blood through every spot that should have been reserved for her lungs. She stepped back quickly in an attempt to escape the mirror in front of her and slipped across the tiled floor. She fell to the ground with a thud but barely felt the pain. At least now she couldn't see it; she couldn't see it, and it couldn't see her.

She locked her head between her knees as she began to sob. Only she had no air left in her to let out the sobs she so wanted to. If she couldn't find it soon, find a way to make space in her chest for her lungs again, she was sure she was going to pass out.

It was then that he found her. Curled into a ball in an old University sweatshirt of Barry's from his freshman year. She was in a state unrecognizable to a person who knew her nearly his entire life.

"Iris!" The words only barely escaped his mouth in a huff as he threw himself to the ground in front of her. He scooted closer until his legs loosely straddle hers, his head only a foot away from her hanging one. He hesitated before placing his hands gingerly on her legs. Immediately upon touch, he felt their shaking at a rapid pace.

She felt the warmth of his touch and so wished it would have been enough to simply make this horrible feeling go away, like a shot of epinephrine on a closing throat. But it didn't. And that sheer fact only made her sob harder.

She lifted her head shakily, with it, realizing her vision was becoming spotty.

If the sight of Iris balled up on the bathroom floor wasn't enough to break Barry, the sight of her bloodshot eyes protruding from her tear and terror stained face surely did.

"I can't - Barry I can't -"

It was there, deep in his memories, that Barry realized what he was looking at. Because he himself had had a very similar experience in the boys bathroom stall when he was 13 years old and someone had just lined the school walls with the black and white copy of his fathers mugshot, sporting the not-so-subtle sharpie title of 'DR.DEATH'.

"Is there something I can do?" He asked softly, pushing the tears he felt coming away as best he could.

Iris shook her head and her vision began to grow darker. She placed her head back between her knees and reached her hand out. Grasping the air until she made contact with Barry, moving her hand until it was atop his. He moved his hand from soothing motions across her leg to grab tightly onto her outstretched hand.

"Please don't go." She croaked. "Please just - talk to me."

Again Barry bit his lip, trying to scare away the tears. This was not about him. He told himself. He needed to be there for her. However much it hurt to see the woman he loved in so much pain, to see her broken in a way he's never seen her before, this was not his time to express that.

Instead, he turned his focus to the one task she gave to him.

"Do you remember, the week before we left for college, we convinced Joe to let us take his car during his shift, saying we still needed to buy some stuff for our dorms or something so we could take a road trip out to Coast City?

Iris nodded ever so slightly into her lap, her breathing still coming out harsh and shallow.

Barry tightened his grip on her hand and tried his best to barrel on.

"I still don't know how we convinced him after we crashed the convertible the summer before, but we did.

"It was one of the hottest days of the summer, had to have been at least 100 degrees, and you made us sit outside on the boardwalk for 2 hours so we could get painted by a caricature artist. You said you wanted us each to take the others portrait with us to school so that we could remember each other in 'our truest form' even though your truest form had buck teeth as big as your feet and I was as scrawny as the lamppost next to us -"

He went on to describe everything about that day in detail. How the sun reflected off the street stand awnings, how the water was colder than they'd expected when they dared each other to dive in, how they shoved their damp, sand coated feet into sand packed shoes. With every sentence, the picture painted itself clearer in her head. She remembered getting the idea to sneak off to Coast City after watching Barry pack things up from his bedroom. Picture frames, and winter clothes; not things for a quick trip, but things for an extended stay. That was when it finally hit her that after 7 years she wouldn't have her best friend down the hall from her anymore.

Barry continued, "We spent hours just walking up and down that boardwalk, buying the weirdest street food we could find. And we just talked about … everything. About how we were excited and scared about college; what we thought it would be like, what we were going to do for thanksgiving break when we were home. I told you about how I was still feeling guilty for moving away even just a few hours from my dad… We spent so much time just wondering around that boardwalk that we found this little dock down the back of one of the shops that had the perfect view of the sunset. I'm pretty sure we were trespassing but thankfully, no one caught us.

"That was one of the days I almost told you how I felt about you. Sitting there on that dock, just the two of us, watching the sunset, knowing I wasn't going to see you for months … But I chickened out, and we drove home and Joe was so mad because he had to get a ride home from that guy at the station who always talks excessively about his in-law's winery in Midway. I remember I was still smiling, even when he was yelling because I was still riding the high from that day. Which of course only made Joe madder.

"I kept that caricature in every dorm room and apartment I had in college. Because even if we couldn't be all that I wanted us to be, that was still one of the best days I'd ever had.

"Everyday I get with you is like that Iris. It doesn't matter how we spend it. I'd always rather be with you."

By the time his story had finished, Iris's bated breath had subsided and she hadn't even noticed. She instead had filled her mind with the sound of crashing waves along the shore, light pink skies and as many of the picturesque details Barry had given her to paint the scene.

With her eyesight feeling clearer, she lifted her head up, resting one cheek across her knees. Immediately, she was struck with the sight in front of her she hadn't been able to take in before. Barry. Sitting there, directly in front of her, clad in nothing but a pair of sweatpants and an exceptionally messy bed-head. His eyes sported an oh-so-familiar morning glow underneath his concerned features.

She smiled softly at him, as if to signal her new found calmness. He returned the favor.

He took her hand and brought it to his lips gingerly. "Do you want to try to go to bed?" He asked.

She nodded her head slowly.

Standing up without releasing her hand, he grabbed hold of her other carefully and pulled her upward. Immediately upon standing in the bright tiled room at the normal eye level, Iris jerked her body sideways, yanking one of her hands away in the process. Barry jumped at her sudden quick movement.

"What? What is it?"

He tried to keep his voice as composed as possible as he watched his wife squeeze her eyes shut and clutch her chest to try to keep it level. He quickly looked over his shoulders to find the source of what had spooked her. But all he saw was the sink vanity, the faucet he had turned off at some point in there 30 minutes on the floor and …

The image of him carrying jagged bags to the dumpster days ago came to mind. He hadn’t even thought about -

Barry began nodding knowingly. "Okay. Okay, let's get you to bed." He led her through a gentle but hasty exit from the room, being sure to flip the light switch on his way out.

The bedroom was brighter unlit than the bathroom had been, its large windows pouring in much more moonlight. It somehow felt even brighter than usual, as if it had wanted to turn into a guiding nightlight itself.

Barry helped Iris back into bed. Once she had positioned herself securely, Barry could see loose tears still staining her face glisten in the moonlight. He sat on the bed beside her and used his thumbs to gently wipe them off.

He let his hands rest on her cheeks, within seconds she seemed to fall deeper into them. This time, she felt comforted by their warmth as opposed to her now cold pillow. Barry took this opportunity to do what he had wanted to do all night, he leaned down and kissed her, softly and tenderly but for an extended period of time.

This, this is what he missed most. This is what they were. The idea that after all of this, after all of the trauma she had to endure in that place, she had to endure it out here too? Was too much for Barry to bare. Suddenly, he felt a wave of anger fill him up like a burst of energy. If this was something she would have to suffer from, he would do everything in his power to make sure this, their home, was not a place that contributed to that.

He removed himself suddenly from their embrace. "I'll be right back."

"Wait where are you going?" her first words breaking her silence came out sounding as raw as her throat probably felt. Barry returned back to her bedside at once, placing a tender kiss on her forehead.

"I'll be back in one second."

True to his word, following a swift exit from the room, he returned barely a second later, holding a crowbar.

Without a pause, he moved quickly into the ensuite. While Iris couldn't see what he was doing, she heard the sound of metal across glass, several bangs on the wall, and a loud 'POP'.

As Barry through their bedroom on his way out the hall, he was holding what, from Iris's vantage point, simply looked like a large, yet extraordinarily thin black rectangle.

But she knew exactly what it was.

A few minutes later, and a few more loud sounds at a distance, and Barry's shadowed outline reappeared in the doorway. Iris laid with her eyes trained on the door for the entire duration of his disappearance. She had curled herself up under the thick comforter as deeply as she could and faced the unoccupied side of the mattress, awaiting its inhabitant.

Barry joined her, climbing beneath sheets until they were inches away from each other, his eyes at her level. Iris's were still glassed with tears as she stared back at his. This was closer than she had been to them throughout this whole ordeal, and at this distance, she could see his concerned feature with much more depth. Dark lines encircled them in a way that begged for sleep, and his forehead and eyebrows creased in a way that exacerbated his expression, an expression that felt far deeper than concern.

"I've never cared what I look like much anyway." He said, the corners of his mouth turning slightly upright, toning down the volume of his quietly aching eyes. "And I'll always be here to tell you how amazing you look."

Somehow, she found the desire to reciprocate his smile, even with the fear that it was an act to make her do so. But then again if her smile was honest, maybe his was too. Because mirage or not, the idea that any version of Barry was smiling meant something to her.

And god, even in this haze, she could tell how much he loved her. He really would do anything for her, wouldn't he? That's what made it all hurt so bad, to think she couldn't be in these moments in her entirety, with him. Not for him. Not for herself. It was that desperation, coupled with his dark eyes boring into hers, that gave her the strength to voice what she had been trying to push down all day. "Barry, nothing feels … right." She could see Barry's jaw clench, she could almost feel it in fact. "All I wanted for all those weeks was to be back here, with you, but … I wanted everything to be the same but everything is not the same, is it?"

He hesitated for a moment before placing his hand on her cheek. "Nothing around us ever really stays the same does it? But we'll make it through this, because we're together. And with you by my side I know that nearly anything is possible. And I'll do anything I can to make you feel that way again."


	3. Session 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry & Iris seek some outside help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been talking to a lot of people on tumblr about the lack of serious mental health discussion that goes on on the Flash, but also generally among tv shows with heavy dramatic and traumatic themes. People often critique the Flash for it's heavy emotional episodes, despite all they go through that validates those emotions. But still, those almost never involve someone actually trained in the mental health field (I love Joe West's pep talks but there is only so much he can do lol) I think it was great when they introduced Dr. Finkle in season 4. However, there are still qualms to be had with that. 1) she hasn't been used or even mentioned to be used off screen since season 4. 2) she knows nothing about team flash, meaning they are constantly jumping through hoops to explain themselves, not allowing for a level of honesty that definitely negativity impacts the effectiveness of their sessions 3) I've heard a lot of people in the black community discussing the importance of a black character having a black therapist, which puts an extra level of difficulty on the situation for Iris. I was on the fence for a bit about whether to introduce a new therapist entirely into this fic, but I think given that they already have established Dr. Finkle within canon (which still, sadly, is a big feat for a tv show so I'll give them that), she seems the most likely candidate for this storyline to take place with.
> 
> To preface, I am not a trained counselor of any kind, so her counseling 'techniques' are based purely on my personal experience, and the basic knowledge of a bachelors in psychology. I'm always open to criticism.
> 
> And lastly, if mental health care is something you too find important, specifically for Black women, check out the Loveland Foundation which is an organization focused on providing just that. Sorry for the long note, happy reading :)

It was nearly afternoon when the couple finally awoke. Dewy eyed in the strong midday light, they tried to rouse and face the day despite all that had happened in the last 24 hours.

Barry had called in for a personal day from work, (not that he needed to explain his reasoning to Joe West) so that he didn't have monotonous work taking up any of the precious time he had just received.

Iris had asked about The Citizen upon her return, knowing having two of her three employees missing had left young Allegra as the sole proprietor. Whether meaning to assure peace of mind or speaking truthfully, Allegra assured Iris The Citizen was doing as well as ever. Soon, she said in an attempt at frivolity, "even better when you tell this hell of a story".

With the concern slightly eased, Iris had put her paper out of her mind for now. Or rather, was too consumed by everything else swishing around in it to have any space left to inhabit.

Her hazed vision carried her downstairs when Barry had asked what she wanted to eat. Pancakes, she had said, without much through. They were her favorite, after all, (as long as she didn't have to make them) so maybe it was just instinctual. Iris didn't notice Barry's face stiffen when she said it.

The fog kept her quiet. They were quiet. Not speaking past the necessary exchanges. _Do you want coffee? How about bacon?_

Iris tried to focus on the sizzle of the skillet as she stared around at her newly redesigned loft. She and Barry hadn't gotten home until late last night, where they immediately retreated upstairs, leaving the secrets of the main living area hidden in the darkness until morning.

The water kettle on the stove began to bubble loudly. She felt as though the boiling was happening in her eardrum despite it being across the room from the dining chair she sat in. Suddenly the sound upped its frequency into an all too familiar high pitched screech. While the sound signaled to the layperson their water had boiled, to Iris it scratched like razors across her skull. She grabbed hold of it in pain as the room began to twist in front of her. As if it didn't feel foreign enough…

 _No_. She pleaded. _Not here._

She shut her eyes tightly and the pounding of her skull began to subside with the fading sound behind her. Barry, who'd been turned away from her and towards the stove all this time, had pulled the kettle off the burner and begun pouring it into the french press. As he moved to set it on the table in front of Iris, she tried to compose herself.

She didn't want this to be their life, her life. Unable to sleep, unable to eat, without feeling as though the world were closing in on her.

They began eating, still quiet. Even in her haze, Iris could tell how much Barry was watching her. She wasn't even sure he was trying to be subtle about it. In fact, maybe he was hoping it would prompt her to speak. He seemed to have spent all the quiet morning waiting for her to make the first move.

What she said, however, was not exactly what he had expected.

"I think I should make an appointment with Dr. Finkle."

Barry looked up from his plate suddenly, where he had been pretending to be busing his gaze. "That's - that's great Iris." He suddenly felt more animated than he had all morning. "Yeah, let's do it." He bit the inside of his mouth at his quick words, replacing them with more "I don't have to come. I didn't mean it like that. You can of course do whatever makes you most comfortable. Unless you … do you … want me to come with you?"

She hadn't really thought that far into her statement when she said it. She pictured herself on the couch in Dr. Finkle's office, where she had sat many times before. But as much as she pictured herself there, she pictured Barry perched on the sofa beside her. It's not as though she felt she needed him there, that she needed a mans guiding hand through her personal tribulations. But was it wrong to want it?

She also knew that what had happened to her had not occurred in a vacuum, Barry experienced a branch of her trauma too.

She hadn't really, she realized with a pang of guilt, thought much about what Barry has endured since she's been back, or for that matter, while she was away either. His dark features from the following night didn't look as harsh in the morning light, but that didn't erase their existence. And as she sat contemplating it all now, staring at him across the table, she realized she couldn't quite figure out what was going on inside his head. She had no idea what he had endured, not really, nor did he of her. If she wanted to work past what had happened, that meant working past _everything_ that had happened. Big or small, this side or the other.

"I do." She said definitively.

Barry nodded. "Then yes absolutely, I'll be there. We can call her - uh - as soon as we're done, I guess, to schedule."

It was a few bites later that Barry spoke again. This time, it took Iris back. "Iris I - I think maybe we should tell Dr. Finkle …. everything."

Iris's eyebrows dipped, "What do you mean?"

"I mean … how are you going to explain all this without mentioning a different dimension or who you were with or how you got out? Maybe other times it worked but … remember when we tried to go before Crisis? We came out of that session with more of a headache from trying to keep our story straight than with anything useful."

Iris didn't disagree. That session had been a logistical disaster. How do you explain your husband's precognition that he will have to sacrifice himself in a multi-universal crisis in order to save all of existence without… saying it? The short answer that session with Dr. Finkle proved is, you can't.

"Do you think we can trust her?"

"I don't know." Barry said honestly as he looked at his wife's hollowed features. Hollowed features that could not be filled with half honest truths. "But we have to trust someone. I was doing some research about it recently, and they do have to follow the Hippocratic oath. So maybe, ya know - that can count for this?" Iris picked at her plate. "Do you trust her?" He asked.

She stabbed her fork into the syrup-soaked pancake. "I do." She looked up at him. "But do you think she could … handle all of this?"

"Iris." He reached for her hand for the first time since the night, his grip didn't feel as cold as they had on the bathroom floor, much more like they did across her cheeks in bad and they smelt like syrup. "You're the one handling all of this. If you can handle going through all of this, she can handle hearing it."

Was she handling this? Her throbbing head and pitted stomach begged to differ.

...

"My … well, I'll say that does begin to fill in quite a lot of blanks for me." Dr. Finkle looked at the pair that sat on the sofa opposite her with sincerity. Somehow, they had managed to get Dr. Finkle's last appointment of the day. Barry and Iris were always surprised at the swiftness by which they were able to make appointments. What they didn't know is that Dr. Finkle would often find a way to squeeze them into her tight schedule, knowing even then, there was something very different about their situation.

"Thank you, for trusting me with what I'm sure is a very big weight on your shoulders. And I hope you know that I am both legally and morally bound to keep this, along with everything else you tell me, just between us." She adjusted the clipboard in her hand, "I do have a feeling, however, that you did not just come in to tell me you are the Flash."

Barry, who had been holding Iris's hand tightly for the entirety of their extended explanation, gave her a squeeze. She looked at him, and he nodded encouragingly.

"I was trapped … kidnapped, in an alternate dimension, for 2 months." The words tasted odd coming out. Like she was speaking them into existence, accepting that they had happened with every voiced syllable.

Dr. Finkle's face contorted in a way that could only be described as someone who stopped themselves mid expression.

"The woman who did it - for weeks I thought we were stuck in that place together. I spent all that time thinking I was working with her to figure out an escape plan. All the while she.. she had created this doppelgänger of myself she controlled with her meta mirror powers who was out in the real world, doing her bidding and pretending to be me.

"I just watched as she - this thing - took over my life. She sat at my desk, she ran my newspaper, she hugged my brother and my dad, she slept in a bed with my husband every. night …" she trailed off, her mind going back to those snip bits she saw from the other side. That thing and Barry laughing over some stupid and arbitrary funny video on their phones curled together on the couch. How easily this imposter held herself in her life, taking possession over everything Iris knew and loved.

"I'm very sorry you had to experience that Iris. I can imagine that being incredibly overwhelming to experience all that at once." Iris honed her focus to the floor and said nothing. "And where is this - doppelgänger now?" Finkle added when she was sure Iris had finished her speech stream.

When Iris didn't speak, Barry cleared his throat. "She's gone. She - she was destroyed."

"So she is no longer, physically, a threat to you? Iris?"

Iris shook her head.

"And what about that other woman, the one with whom you were with? Is she a threat to you, physically, right now?"

Iris shook her head again "No she's locked up, in Iron Heights." Barry added.

"I know that physical threat is only one very small part of this. But knowing that that threat is alleviated is a very helpful step. Without fear of threat in the future, we can focus on trauma of the past and the present." Iris remained silent. "But tell me, Iris, what is it that you are feeling now?"

"I feel … stupid." She suddenly blurted. "For letting myself be tricked and played - for so long ..."

"Why do you say you 'let' yourself be tricked?"

"Because I'm an investigative reporter!" She didn't know where her voice came from but it raised several notches on the volume scale. "I've cracked hundreds of cases, I've helped Barry and the team through hundreds of high-pressure tactical fights - I should have seen this coming!"

Dr. Finkle was quiet for a moment. "As much as we would like to believe we have as much control over our lives as we think, that is many times not the case. There is so much in our lives that we cannot control, whether it rains tomorrow or if someone cuts us off in traffic. You cannot blame yourself, Iris, for not having total control over a highly distressing situation. It is not your fault, that someone took advantage of you."

"She manipulated me for weeks and I had no idea, I missed all the signs. I just - I trusted that she was trying just as desperately to get out as I was " she huffed a laugh. "Turns out she was, but she was using me to do it. I should have known, I shouldn't have trusted her so easily, I've trained myself better than that. All of this and..." her voice croaked, "by the time I figured it all out it was too late, she had hurt so many more people, and I was too weak to stop her. How can I not take some of the blame?"

"It is not your fault you were in this situation, Iris. No human is devoid of times of weakness or fear or making mistakes. Not being able to stop a predator does not make you weak. You lived, you made it through to the other side, and she faced her repercussions. That shows strength Iris and resilience. You survived, and not only that, you won.

"Then why doesn't it feel like it?" Tears began to prickly her eyes, her voice heightened in pitch again, "I'm back home where I wanted to be for so long but it still feels like I'm watching everything around me from that damn mirror. And I'm just waiting for the smoke to clear and the glass to shatter."

"In what ways does it feel like that?"

"Everything … little things… Like, everyone in my life, feels so foreign, almost like they're not real. I keep waiting for them to just disappear in front of me and I'd suddenly be back in that place, back under Eva's thumb, watching them continue to live their lives from a distance without me. Even at home -" she was suddenly very conscious of Barry beside her. _No_. She reminded herself, _you promised yourself you would be honest_. She barreled on with her pitch reaching another octave, "Home doesn't feel like home."

Barry's hand shifted around hers but didn't release. She didn't want to look at him and see what she knew she'd find. Hurt.

"It's not as though - I love my home, I love being back with Barry. I didn't mean -." She started to backtrack. Her mind went fumbling for excuses for a problem she didn't even understand.

"Iris you do not need to excuse your emotions. Re-acclimating to the world after a traumatic event takes time. Feeling guilty for having these feelings will not help you work through them." She for the first time, directly addressed Barry. "Do you agree Barry?"

Silent for much of the exchange, Barry was startled by her sudden question. That, and the fact that Iris's words were still ringing in his ears.

_Home doesn't feel like home._

"Yes I -" he turned towards her now, she still felt uneasy to meet his gaze. "I just want to be here for you Iris. Whatever you need."

Iris's eyes began to well again. This was the weakness she felt.

Dr. Finkle noticed the tears and the silence that matched them.

"Iris I know that what you experienced was a unique form of trauma, but it was just that, trauma. And millions of individuals have and live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What you are feeling is not wrong, and it is not unmanageable. It is a natural response to the trauma that you endured. The good thing is that there are coping mechanisms that can help you manage some of these symptoms."

Iris wiped the tears from her cheek and nodded for the first time acknowledging what she had said. "I guess I never thought I would have something I use to learn about in school."

"Leading the life you two lead, I'm quite frankly surprised it has taken this long." She replied honestly.

Dr. Finkle spent the rest of the session listening to Iris talk her way through her emotional and physical responses, in the Mirrorverse and out, panic attack and all. While some of it, Dr. Finkle did admit, was outside of her expertise, she still gave Iris coping strategies to work on if she were to experience any of these symptoms before their next visit. Finkle also promised that she would see what she could discern from the "Neural Dissonance" phenomenon that Eva McCoulluch had coined on her end.

By the time the timer was up, they had still only scratched the surface, an understandable side effect following the extended superheroic backstory the visit began with.

"I will see you again next week. Unless you feel as though you'd like to come in sooner, in which case, feel free to call and I'm sure I can squeeze you in." Barry and Iris began walking to the door when Dr. Finkle called out again.

"I hope that you telling me all you did at the start of this session means that you believe that this is a safe space where you do not need to hide things behind the guile. In openness, we will find much better solutions."

The pair nodded from the doorway, hands still clung together, "Thank you, Dr. Finkle" Barry said.

She hesitated for a moment, as she does sometimes throughout a session, choosing her words carefully. "Thank _you_." The sincerity in her voice was unmistakable. "Both of you."


	4. Frayed Edges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another week in their new reality after the mirrorverse, and Barry & Iris return to the couch of Dr.Finkle. This time, Iris returns with a new topic of discussion. And it involves Barry ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, it’s been a minute. I really struggled with this chapter because I perhaps ambitiously wanted to explore a lot, which also posed the chance of addressing things poorly. It was difficult to find a balance I was happy within discussing both Iris and Barry’s mental health at once without it seeming like one’s struggles were overshadowing the other. At the same time, I thought it was important TO specifically address their issues as they relate to each other because their mirrorverse storylines are so interwoven. I tried my best to portray what I thought were realistic reactions and discussions between the pair in what I hope was a conducive manner to the audience. Again, always open to comments or concerns. Thanks again for reading! 
> 
> Also! The next chapter is much lighter, which I think will be a nice reprise for both us and the characters :)

After the emotional drainage of their last session, Iris wasn't entirely sure where today's meeting would go. 

She’d still been openly struggling acclimating to the time conundrum she now found herself in. The past week alone had felt like a marathon; endless, and exhaustive. Almost as if she were trapped in flashtime, running at a speed she was ill-prepared to handle.

She felt tired at just the idea of recounting it all.

There was one lighter aspect of this session though. And it was that she didn’t need a pre-spun fabrication of the truth held on the tip of her tongue. Regardless of the pain it took to say it the week prior, and how tiring the prospect now felt, she knew it would be remarkably easier to say the truth outright rather than to hide it behind false narratives. Barry was very much right on that.

_Barry._

He was a big part of the last week. In every way, he was there. Scrubbing the loft and office of reflective materials. Making her breakfast, dinner, and lunch every day. Listening when she wanted to talk, sitting with her when she didn’t, and generally staying by her side whenever she needed him. 

But with every caring deed, something still felt … off. And it was a feeling that left a hollow pit inside her. They could sit across from each other at dinner, lay next to each other in bed and she could feel that hollow pit in the space between them. It felt like the gnawing underbelly of it all. Her connection with Barry is what tethered her to this reality when she was gone. The sheer thought that that connection could be tearing was something Iris had been trying to push away all week. For she feared it would be the ultimate crack to her fragile state. 

If she were honest, that’s mostly what drew her back to the twill couch she sat on now. Barry’s narrative had been notably absent from the last they sat there. He had given her the space to explore the horrors of the mirrorverse, and been there with unwavering support since. 

But what about him? 

She knew his mind was somewhere else and she wanted, needed, to know where. When the thought of dredging through her twisting memories felt painfully exhaustive, this is the thought that drove her to this couch. She needed her anchor to be re-tethered if she, _they_ , had any hope of moving forward. She needed help tying the knot back together. And that meant fixing both the frayed edges.

“So,” Dr. Finkle began with a pleasant smile towards the couple that sat across from her. Warm, welcoming, understanding, the basics in the counselor's handbooks no doubt. She looked at the pair, as she continued speaking “How have things been since I last saw you?” 

Iris glanced over at Barry, unsurprisingly, he sat staring at her prompting, as if he were sitting on the sofa across from her and not beside.

“Um, I went back to work yesterday actually. Which was nice. I got to talk to Kamila, one of the people I mentioned, who was trapped with me, for really the first time since we got out. She said she’s also been struggling but it … not in the same ways. I think being in there for so much longer affected me differently.” 

Finkle nodded. “I am glad that you felt you could confide in your friend. Even if your reactions are not exactly the same. Having someone who can relate to such an experience can be helpful.” 

“Yeah, she - she said she’d been having similar lapses in time. I hate saying so but it was … nice to know I wasn’t alone in feeling that way.” 

“It is okay to feel that way, Iris.” 

“I know. I know.” She shook her head, trying to remember what Finkle had said in thier last session. Her feelings were valid, she didn’t need to excuse them.

“It felt good, too, to be back with her and the rest of my team, to work on something again. Something that was mine. I wasn’t sure when I wanted to go back. But two nights ago I couldn’t sleep and just - got the urge to write about everything that happened to me. I didn’t know what would come of it or if I would even publish it - anything. I thought it would be painful but it was mostly really - cathartic.” 

“I’m glad to hear that Iris.” They sat quietly for a moment, another classic counselor move when she clearly had another question to ask. “Did you discover anything in that writing?” 

“I don’t know.” She looked down. “Thinking about all the ways Eva used me - I tried to focus on what you had said. That ultimately, I’m standing here now, with my freedom. She doesn’t have control over me anymore … I don’t want her to have control over me anymore.” 

Amidst her reflection filled nightscapes and mind-numbing headaches, Eva’s crazed and manipulated expressions came to laugh at her any chance her mind would let them. She was so tired of being consumed by her, tired of letting her rule the space inside her head. 

“Maybe I thought writing it, possibly publishing it, could be me taking ownership of the story. Me saying, I’m not a pawn anymore, I’m the one that controls what happens now.” 

“I’m glad it made you feel that way, Iris. There is so much strength required to acknowledge what you have gone through and find ways to work through it and move forward. I hope you know that. A far greater strength than anything that may have happened, or is still happening that is making you feel weak.”

She wanted to give words of agreement, but the feeling of her body scrunched together in fear still felt all too palpable. 

“That’s what I told her.” 

Dr.Finkle changed her gaze to the other room's occupant. 

Barry straightened. “When she had her last - uh - panic attack.”

“You’ve had some more panic attacks this week Iris?”

Suddenly Iris’s palms started to sweat. “I did. I had one at home ….” She glanced sideways. “And another at the office yesterday.” 

“You didn’t tell me that.” said Barry concernedly. Though, that seemed to be his default undertone as of late.

“Okay. Do you know what might have triggered them?” Finkle asked.

“The one at the house it was … I caught my reflection in the window.” She shook her head. She felt even more foolish saying it aloud.

“I was sitting on the couch and I just kept catching it in the corner of my eye. It felt like it was moving when I was still and -“ she shook her head again. “I did what you said. The deep breathing exercises. Focusing on tangible things around me -.” 

“That’s great Iris. Did you feel that it helped?”

“I think so. I - I couldn’t tell how long I was in it. But I think …” she trailed off. She remembered the glances she felt from the nighttime window. How real they felt. She remembers Barry zooming to her side. He said she’d been yelling for him but she hadn’t even realized she had been. He tried to help her through the techniques they’d been taught. But it could have been hours before she felt like she could even stand up. Hours, minutes, days. One of the three. 

But it wasn’t _that_ attack that still ached in the back of her brain. 

“The other one, when I was at work.” She felt her heartbeat quicken as she pulled the memory to the forefront. Mostly, because it seemed to come up almost entirely blank.

“I’m not as sure what set it off… I was doing work and then… I was in the courtyard outside the office, trying to get air while things were still dark around me.” 

“Would you be okay if we tried to work through the situation to figure it out?” 

Iris nodded. 

“What were you working on?” 

She remembers sitting at her desk, she remembered Allegra and Kamilla talking, coffee’s in hand, over the office corkboard. But from there to when the light came back to her vision on a balcony bench, things felt incredibly cloudy. The screen that sat in front of her in that dreamscape, just as foggy.

“I don’t - I really don’t remember.” 

“That’s alright.” 

But Iris pushed herself. She wanted to figure it out, she wanted to know what caused the panic attack. From what Dr. Finkle has discussed with her last week, it was important to establish her triggers in order to work through them. “I remember Kamilla and Allegra talking - loudly …” 

“What were they talking about?” 

Iris, again, strained to remember, like she had blacked it out as the panic attack had done to her vision.

“They - they mentioned Wally, my brother, and when he had come to visit when I wasn’t there.” Pieces slowly began coming into view. Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces even seemed to be from the same puzzle. 

“They made a joke about - about Atlantis? And they said something about the speed force … dying ...” 

The cushions beside Iris bounced as the man beside her tensed. 

“I - I didn’t really know what they were saying and I think … maybe that’s why? I felt so disconnected. It reminded me of how much I had missed, how much happened to the people around me that I wasn’t a part of.” 

Barry’s jaw was tight. His mind fighting itself behind it. He knew he would have to tell her, he was planning to. But it felt too soon, it always felt too soon. He didn’t want to introduce something else into their lives when she already described everything around her as feeling new and foreign. Any added stress, any pressure, any change felt like it was at risk to break the already thin veneer Iris had built around herself to support this new reality. 

He swallowed hard. But that's what they were here to rebuild, wasn’t it? A safer space and a new grounding back into this world. How could Iris be expected to feel like she was a part of this world again if he didn’t help to bring her back into it? If he wasn't honest with her about all that had happened? 

“Iris … there’s something I should tell you.” 

She looked at him, so surprised at his sudden speech she didn't have time to acknowledge that this was exactly what she had wanted.

“I haven’t told you everything about when you were gone.” 

He began playing with his fingers the way he always did to fight off his rising anxiety. “When Wally visited, we found out … we found out that the speed force was dead.” 

“What?” She turned herself so that she was now directly facing him. “What do you mean it’s dead, you - I’ve seen you use your speed -“ 

“It’s artificial. We - the team, Wally, Jay a little - and Nora, her notebook helped, we manufactured it.” He tripped over his words.

“Artificial, like Thawnes’? Like the negative speed force!?” She was surprised by how quickly her ‘weakened’ state was replaced by feelings of anger. But not nearly as surprised as she was hearing the words out of her husband's mouth. 

“No no, it’s not like that. We manufactured it from an element called eternium and a quantum splicer and -” He fumbled, seeing anger mix with every other emotion across her face in an unbearable way. 

For a moment his mind flashed back to the loft - and words that flew through it with painful ferocity weeks ago.

_‘I want you to get out’._

For a moment, looking at her, it felt hard to separate the faces. The facade from the real thing.

It was only a moment, but a moment nonetheless. 

“Iris we - we had to do something, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get to you without my speed, every other option just - it wasn’t enough. And I mean …” he felt out of breath covering this unexpected story “it worked!” 

Iris barely heard his explanation. “When were you going to tell me all this?” 

“I - soon … “ he rubbed the back of his neck. “I just wanted to give you time to - to come back before I … brought you back into everything.” 

“What else haven’t you told me?” 

“Nothing Iris - nothing.” He said hastily.

That nothing hung in the air like a gas, filling up every inch of free space. Nothing felt a hell of a lot like everything. Nothing more for him to say after months of separation? Nothing between their redesigned house and the death of the speed force worth mentioning? _Nothing?_

“Iris.” They had almost forgotten Dr. Finkle was there. “It feels as though there’s something else you’d like to say to Barry?” 

She wondered if Dr. Finkle herself could read minds. But she then felt the twist her face had contorted into on full display. 

This was part of why they kept coming back. It's hard to push down the difficult things you want to say when you’re directly prompted to say them. 

“What about the two months you spent with someone that wasn’t me? Nothing about that?” 

Barry’s face drained of color. He suddenly wanted to look anywhere but at her. 

While Iris West-Allen had been hiding from mirrors and memories, this is what Barry Allen had been hiding from. The biggest difference is he hadn’t even admitted that to himself. 

In his sound mind, he knew Iris would have questions, at the very least, about the life he led while she was locked up - held prisoner - impersonated ...

But Barry Allen had carefully diverted a good chunk of any mind space he had for his own feelings towards other activities. First, he had busied himself with the Speedforce and doing everything he could to get Iris out. Then, it became about nursing her back to health. The more he focused on her, and how she must be feeling, the less he thought about himself and what he had done to contribute to it. 

Iris shut her eyes in a deep breath. 

It wasn’t anger that she really felt, despite what she displayed, it felt instead like a sense of desperation. After being in the dark for so long, watching from the other side, she couldn’t stand to be there anymore. 

“Barry, I don’t - blame you for what happened .” She said in a quieter tone. “But you can’t look at me and tell me it was _nothing worth mentioning_.” 

His guilt was beginning to blind him again. Her plea that she didn’t blame him felt so far from his current mindset it simply didn’t compute. 

“I - I don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t want to hurt you any more than you’re already hurting.” 

“But keeping me in the dark doesn’t help me, Barry!” Her emotions neared the surface now, the desperation finding its way to her throat. “I can’t sleep or eat or focus on … anything without thinking about all of this. And that includes the thought of who was sleeping beside you for months.” Tears were falling freely now. Her timid throat croaked out the next few words. “Not talking about it doesn’t change that.” 

A matching tear rolled down Barry’s cheek.”I - I don’t know what to say.” He admitted defeatedly.

There was silence for a while. The couches two occupants nursing their battle-wound tears in the empty space. 

“What is it you find most hard to talk about, Barry?” Finkle asked.

“I - I just - I don’t know. I’ve just been trying so hard to not think about it, to focus on right now.” He looked at Iris. “To focus on you. I’m just trying to forget it even happened.” 

“But it did happen Barry,” Iris said, her voice was small but her tone was matter of fact. “to me, to you - to us.”

Dr.Finkle broke in. “I understand how these memories could be painful to re-live, Barry. But we have been spending these sessions working through just that with Iris have we not?" 

_No._ Barry thought. _We’ve been helping my wife deal with the aftereffect of a kidnapping, imprisonment, and psychological torture._ What he experienced didn't come close; it had no bearings, held not a single candle, to what she had gone through. 

But where he expected anger, frustration, and tears, to be radiating off his wife's face, he saw a look that wasn’t showing any of that. It was pleading - on the brink of desperation. Like it needed something from him. Not a stack of pancakes, not a touch to remember he was real, not consoling through an anxiety attack or the removal of more household items. The action her face begged for was not physical. But something else entirely. 

_Please._ It screamed. _I need you to talk to me._

“Perhaps we could start small?” Finkle probed. “Just one visceral memory - even just one feeling you remember.”

Just one feeling? Barry’s mind raced with the hundreds of feelings that flew through him over the last two months, many of which he'd felt again in these past few moments. Fear and doubt; doubt in his marriage and doubt in himself, confusion, desperation, helplessness, anger, pure unfiltered rage … 

“She made pancakes.” The words just sputtered out of him with a sense of finality. 

“Pancakes?” Dr. Finkle prompted, to Barry’s sudden silence. 

Barry turned towards Iris. “It was the first morning you were gone. She made them … and they were good.” 

Iris wanted to shout at him. _This? This is your most visceral memory? My imposter making you delicious celebratory pancakes after locking me in another dimension?_

“It didn’t feel right. Right from the start, it felt like things were different. Not just the pancakes. It was everything, the little things, the big things….

“But every time - every time I’d doubt - every time I thought something was wrong. She did something that made me question myself. Or something like you … And it became easier to live through those little moments than to confront the moments that hung like big signs over it all.” 

Barry’s voice too became hushed. “I let my fear win out. I chose fear over my gut, and my wife paid the price.” 

“What were you afraid of Barry?” Finkle asked. 

He met Iris’s eyes. “Of losing you, or worse ... finding out I already had.” 

Iris stayed quiet but didn’t drop her gaze. A feat which Barry was grateful for. No matter how bewildered, he continued trying to discern her thoughts through her expression. Everything he word vomited felt like an excuse. There was no excuse. And he was reminded of that in every painful moment Iris experienced since she’d been back. 

“Iris there’s no excuse for - I’m sorry. I should have figured it all out sooner. I could have rescued you before my speed even ran out! All the weeks I wasted while you were in danger I -“ He threw his hands to his head. No matter how deeply he had tried to entrench himself into helping his wife and the current moment, nothing had been able to distract himself from this thought. As it had not stopped beating his insides since the moment the truth was finally realized. Not when he realized she was gone, not when he realized where she had gone, not when he saw what it had done to her…   
“For weeks you were trying to get back to me and I didn’t even know you were gone.”

“We cannot go back and change the past though Barry.” Dr.Finkle stated, unbeknownst to the contradiction behind her words. “All we can do is move forward.” 

Barry pinned his focus on a worn-out piece of carpet across the room. It's flattened top and sun-bleached color. His eyes stayed stationary so his mind could travel. 

Changing the past for his own gain is not something Barry had thought about in ages. He’d seen the way it had destroyed so much of the world around him. He still lives every day reminded of the destruction even just one self-serving act can cause.

But at the same time, life post-crisis felt like a different plane of existence. An existence with missing universes and completely rewritten realities. Wasn’t everything already as different as it could be? And wasn't it all something he'd have to live knowing he played a role in forever anyway? The destruction of _multiple universes_. What would one more shift, one little change really - 

“Don’t.”

Barry turned quickly to his side, his mind still spinning in hypothesis “What?” 

“I know what you’re thinking.” Her words were firm, but not harsh. “And you know the answer. Barry, you can’t rewrite time. Not for this. Not for me.” 

He wanted to lie and say he knew and he’d never seriously consider it. That it was just a whim. Just a whim like considering handing over Carver to a psychopath in exchange for Iris’s freedom … 

“Barry I know how sorry you are. I see it in your face every time you look at me. But I don’t need you to be sorry. I need you to work through this with me. You said it yourself that the only way we’ll make it through this is if we make it through this together. And that includes you being honest."

There it was again. _What he went through._ The sentiment itself made him want to phase through the brick wall behind him. 

Silence. Then, Dr. Finkle.

“Barry? Do you want to talk a little more about your experiences over the last few months?” 

“I -“ Barry stuttered. After his somewhat subconscious attempt to hide from all of his feelings, the pressure of suddenly being prompted to speak on it felt overwhelming. They had come here for Iris. Iris who had been kidnapped into another dimension. Not he who had lived his life like nothing had changed. “This isn’t about me -“ 

“It is Barry!” The sternness in Iris’s voice returned, despite her quivering lip, “I came back to something that wasn’t just ... held in place while I was gone, it was changed. Things happened - god - the speedforce died and I didn’t even know!” She swallowed hard, her voice softer when it returned. “And I know there are moments when you look at me, or look at the loft and think of a memory with her. I don’t know how to reconcile that without you.” 

She was sure she would have perpetual tears streaming down her face at this point. 

It was now Barry’s turn to choke up. It hurt him that his mind was doing that to him. Blurring the lines between real and fake despite now knowing the truth. But it hurt him tenfold to know that Iris knew it was happening. 

“Iris I can’t sit here and look you in the eyes and tell you all the ways I let you down and all the ways I betrayed, you, my wife … I don’t think I could do it.”

“Betrayed is a very powerful word Barry, why do you use that?” 

“I cheated on my wife didn’t I!?” The words tasted like bile, or possibly that was the real bile he felt churning uncomfortably in his stomach. “She was in danger and I let someone into our home, into our bed that wasn't her. How can I reconcile that!?” 

Every iteration past and alternate of himself screamed just at the thought.   
Cheat. On Iris. The love of his life.

How do you cheat on your wife accidentally? 

Iris’s world began to spin again, but this time, she honed her focus in time to reel it in. As repulsive as they had felt for Barry to say, Iris equally struggled to wrap her mind around his words and all that they held. But her earlier reassurance stayed true. As much as the statement felt like it should have, it didn’t make her angry towards her husband. She didn’t look at the man who had gone leaps and bounds to save her on more than one occasion and see someone who betrayed her. 

Her heart, it knew how much he loved her. How he would never do something to hurt her. But her mind, in the state it had been in recently, was muffling those feelings. Blasting bits of the ‘other women’ beyond the mirror and feeding into the part of her that felt like she’d just returned home after a mistress snuck away. 

It wasn’t really betrayal that she felt. It was nothing like when she found her first college boyfriend making out with another girl at a frat party. This was like, when she called Barry afterward at 3 am crying and he didn’t answer. 

Isolating. 

Something like an endlessly ringing phone line standing between you and the person you need the most. 

It wasn’t what had happened that really bothered her. It was what it was doing to them now. 

Barry twisted his wedding ring around his finger, his knee tapping up and down rapidly. “All I can come up with is ‘I’m sorry’ but it’s just not big enough.” 

Iris was quiet for a moment.

“Barry I don’t know what this thing was like. Other than the little snapshots. But I know that it tricked you, my dad, Wally, the team ... I have to imagine - she wasn’t very different from me -” 

This time, Barry locked eyes with her. They were now blaring with intensity. “She wasn’t you Iris, she could never be you.

“That feeling I had that something was wrong - like there was a piece of my life missing, I felt it the whole time she was there. Even when I still thought … even then I knew something was missing. Something that no one could replicate. I just didn’t realize … I only really realized when it went away. Because it went away the second I saw you on the other side of that mirror. You, the truest part of you, is not replicable.” 

She felt her chest warm like she’d just put on a thick jumper. 

These words were exactly what she clung to while staring at her stolen domestic home life. That part of her that always had hope; that knew the team - that Barry - would figure it out. That feeling was muffled in the illusions of the mirrorverse, sometimes barely to be heard at all. But it was always there. It was the same feeling that drove her every time she said goodbye thinking it may be the last time she did. 

He was always running home to her. Even if she was harder to find.

Finkle spoke. “Iris? How does that make you feel?” 

“In my heart - Barry, I believe you.” Her fingers fiddled together. The warmth in her chest struggled to warm her whole body. “But I still think about how for weeks I watched all the people I love … love this thing. Not me. For five weeks, this me - just ... it felt like I didn’t even exist.” 

Barry’s eyes were closed now, his forehead scrunched. His knee still tapped nervously, heading, seemingly, for superspeed.

“See and I hate - I know it hurts you when I say this and I hate seeing that but-“ 

“But we said we would be honest.” Barry finished. He met her gaze again. The corners of his mouth found someplace neutral to sit. “You’re not hurting me, Iris. I just hate knowing you’re in pain - and that I had a part in it.”

“Iris.” Dr.Finkle said amidst their gaze. “If I may; you say that for those 5 weeks it felt as though you were unloved. But to me, it sounds as though you were loved a great deal. I admit to not fully understanding everything about the life you two lead, but even if the situation may be new, human behavior tends to be much more consistent than you’d think. 

“If this woman this - whatever it was - was a near perfect mirror image of yourself, as you say, to me that says that there is far more of you to love than not. All these people forgave these mistakes or missteps this imposter made so often because they trusted _you_ , they loved _you_. It’s that love that you’ve built throughout your life with the people around you that allowed her to pass for you as long as she did. You, Iris - you established that. 

“Now I am not saying this to discredit how you felt or how you feel now. Your feelings in this, frankly, unthinkable siuation are valid. I say this only to offer you a different perspective.”

“But did she taint what I’d established?” Iris replyed softly. “I - how can this life be mine again when it was lived without me for so long?” 

“Time, Iris,” Finkle said plainly. “often things that once felt insurmountable, only look that way because we’re standing so close. But with time, distance, and work - I won't say it won’t require work - it becomes something far more manageable.” 

A soft, familiar strumming sound played from something on the table between them. Dr.Finkle reached down to silence it. 

“I’m sorry to say this is where our session ends tonight.” She said as the party began to stand from their seat. 

“Iris, I still want you to keep track of those triggering moments for you. But I also want the pair of you to work on something as well.”

The couple looked at her as they slipped on their coats. 

“I want you to go on a date. Somewhere new, somewhere far removed from these spaces and settings that have become so complicated. I want you to focus on just each other and a new experience.” 

A date. A proper date outside the loft was something neither of them could honestly say they’d thought about for even a moment in this past hectic week. It felt so ... normal. 

Suddenly, Barry felt a brush at his side. Iris had slipped her arm around his. He looked down and in a wordless exchange, Barry felt a fire turn in his stomach. 

“Okay. Thank you, Doctor.”


End file.
